


Waltzing Matilda

by Shepherd23



Series: A Series of Happy Beginnings [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Australia, Gen, Post-S6, Rumbelle Family, Rumbelle Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shepherd23/pseuds/Shepherd23
Summary: There are more places in Australia than just Sydney and Melbourne; some wild, most beautiful, and plenty that are just downright strange, a fact that Belle and Rumple discover while exploring Billabong Sanctuary south of Townsville, North Queensland.“Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, under the shade of a coolibah tree …”Rumbelle Summer Vacation 20/08





	Waltzing Matilda

**Author's Note:**

> [Version with photographs on Tumblr - includes snakes and crocodiles, word of warning if that's not your thing]

Belle rubbed her eyes and yawned as she sank into the wooden deckchair, grateful for the shade of the rainforest trees behind her. July was the middle of winter in Australia, but the thermometer hadn’t dropped below sixty-five degrees since they left Brisbane on their two-week drive up the Queensland coast. A week and a half in, and Belle was grateful that Rumple had planned in the extra time. Just looking at a map hadn’t prepared her in the slightest for the actual _distance_ they had to cover. Townsville was only meant to be a two-day stopover on their way to Cairns, but it had turned into four. After driving all the way from Rockhampton, Belle needed a break.

Billabong Sanctuary had been a lucky find in the interim. A short drive south of Townsville, it was an out-of-the-way little spot filled with native Australian wildlife that the kids could spend hours exploring with ease. They got there early in the morning, as Belle had been concerned about fighting the school holiday traffic that had plagued Taronga and Australia Zoo, but it turned out she was worried over nothing. The school holidays were over, and Billabong Sanctuary was already proving to be far quieter than the other wildlife parks they’d visited.

“Mama!” Gideon called, poking his head out from beneath the picnic table. He waved frantically for her attention with the hand not clutching the stuffed toy crocodile he’d been practically glued to since Australia Zoo. “Hi!”

“Hi!” Belle waved back. “Are you gonna come out from there?”

“No!” her five-year-old declared. He hoisted his crocodile and scurried back underneath the table, giggling all the while. In the sand underneath the trees, Gabi laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world, then went looking for more sticks. Gabi was always building something. Belle just hoped it wasn’t a bomb meant to attack Gideon’s fort.

“Alright. I guess Papa and I will have to eat lunch all by ourselves!”

“No, no, no!” was the reply, followed by Gideon sticking his head out again and staring at her with big brown eyes.

“You have to come out if you want a burger!”

Gideon contemplated that, biting his lower lip. “I have to have a _constultation_ with Ducky ‘bout that.”

“Alright,” Belle answered with a smile while internally rolling her eyes. Only her son, who had been obsessed with _The Land Before Time_ since he was one, would name a toy crocodile ‘Ducky’. “Enjoy your consultation!”

The picnic area was all enclosed anyway, so she wasn’t worried about the kids going far or falling into the billabong. She was too tired to restrain them. To prove the point, she yawned right as Rumple trundled down the steps from the sanctuary cafeteria with lunch. He raised an eyebrow.

“I think I’d better drive home,” he said, arranging three burgers and a pot of tea on the table.

“That may be a good idea,” she said. They’d had this conversation plenty of times on the drive up from Brisbane. She had to keep reminding him that he was as mortal as she was out here, and had to take breaks just as often.

 

_“When we go to England, we’re taking the train,” Rumple informed her as they rolled to a stop at another set of roadworks just after leaving Proserpine. If not for the GPS, Belle would have had no idea where they were; the cane fields and electricity poles were all that proved they hadn’t driven off into the middle of nowhere._

_“We wouldn’t have had a choice,” said Belle. “I don’t think there is a train that goes this far north.”_

_“There’s a train right over there.”_

_“Not a passenger train. They haul cane.”_

_They had seen plenty of harvesters chewing up the cane fields on their way through Proserpine, and even more as they kept going north. It was ‘crush season’, as the locals put it, which meant that the cane was cut, loaded into steel cages that were then pulled by train to enormous mills that seemed to be the primary industry in this part of Australia. Huge mills that filled the windscreen and_ reeked _of molasses. Belle remembered driving past the one in Proserpine; it had been like breathing in gaseous taffy._

_She turned around in her seat. “Gabi, look! See the train?”_

_There was no response from the three-year-old drooping in her car seat. To her left, Gideon yawned, fighting sleep but rapidly losing the battle._

_“Nope, they’re out of it.”_

 

“I offered to drive here,” Rumple reminded her, cutting the kids’ burger in half so they could share.

Belle sighed. “I know. I forgot how far it was.”

In comparison to the killer stretch they covered between Rockhampton and Mackay three days ago – four hundred kilometres of almost nothing but bushland and cattle stations – the short drive from their hotel to Billabong Sanctuary was insignificant. But still enough that Belle was feeling the fatigue again.

“Gabrielle! Lunch time!” Rumple called to their daughter. In true three-year-old fashion, Gabi pretended not to hear him and kept adding to her collection of sticks and stones. “Where’s Gideon?”

Right on cue, their boy leapt out from underneath the table, hissing and growling as he pretended that Ducky was a fire-breathing dragon attacking his papa. Rumple feigned surprise and pretended to fall onto the seat.

“Oh, you got me!” he declared, clutching his stomach in mock injury. “Oh, dear. Papa’s been killed by a dragon. What _is_ Gideon going to do now?”

“Alright, you two. Settle down,” said Belle amidst raucous laughter. She hauled their child off his papa and held him long enough for Rumple to get up and brush himself off. He’d abandoned the three-piece suit in Newcastle, and since had dressed in a button-down shirt, grey slacks and a pair of sneakers more suited to walking. Mr Gold’s appearance had stood out in Storybrooke; in a country where it was perfectly acceptable to walk around in public in shorts and flip-flops (which Australians called ‘thongs’, confusingly), the look was downright alien. Belle did miss his ties, though she had to admit that she found his opened collar interesting.

She could hardly entertain such thoughts with a five-year-old wriggling in her arms, however.

“Do you want ketchup on your fries, Gid?” she asked, reaching for the sachets that came with the burgers. ‘Tomato sauce’, as it was called in Australia, didn’t seem to come in bottles but in little sachets that you opened by squeezing the ends together, the ketchup coming out through a slot in the middle. It had been a fun day when Belle finally figured that out.

“Yes, please!”

“They gave me a funny look when I asked for no beetroot,” said Rumple, rolling his eyes. Then he yawned as well. “How far is it to Cairns?”

“Three hundred and ninety kilometres.”

“How far is that in miles?”

Belle did a quick calculation. “Two hundred and fifty, I think?”

He sighed and slid down on his seat. “It sounds so much shorter in miles.”

At that, she hid a giggle. She wasn’t sure which was worse on the great and terrible Dark One; the fatigue or the impatience caused by being stuck in a (sometimes non-moving) car for hours on end. If Rumple had his powers, they could have simply frog-hopped their way up the Australian coast instead of all this driving. Flying had been an option, but Belle figured out that they’d miss most of the country that way. It was slow going, but it was worth it.

They’d started in Melbourne, inspired by the few memories of Lacey’s that Belle had always found intriguing. After the Black Fairy’s defeat and they’d gotten Gideon back, Belle and Rumple had talked about getting out of Storybrooke for a while. Neither of them had forgotten Belle’s desire to see the world, and after taking some time to themselves to get their marriage back in order, they’d been on the verge of taking a trip when Gideon was one. That got cancelled because she fell pregnant with Gabi, and then things continued to get in the way until Rumple finally put his foot down. That hadn’t quite worked, so they left Storybrooke quickly and quietly before the next great catastrophe struck, leaving just a note on the pawnshop window to explain where they’d gone.

The delay had been good in some ways, Belle figured. For one thing, the kids were out of diapers, could feed and bathe themselves – the short attention span of a three-year-old getting distracted and building pyramids out of hotel bath products notwithstanding – and they understood the dangers of running away from their parents.

 _Most_ of the time.

“Gabi!” Rumple shouted, on his feet and running after their all-too-adventurous daughter before Belle turned around. Her heart stopped, thinking Gabi had fallen into the billabong (and those turtles had looked rather nasty) when a cacophony of quacks filled the air. Rumple scooped up their daughter, rescuing a flock of ducks and the grey kangaroo standing against the fence from her attentions.

“Roo!” Gabi cried happily around the thumb in her mouth. She giggled even louder as the kangaroo stretched up and tried to reach into Rumple’s pockets.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” said Rumple. He chuckled as he found the brown paper bag, knelt down to be level with the kangaroo and poured a small amount of grain into his palm. “Remember what I told you?” he said to Gabi. “Hold your hand flat, don’t startle him … that’s my girl …”

Belle quickly got out her phone and took a photo. The kangaroo inched closer before nuzzling Gabi’s hand through the fence, dropping most of the grain in the process and making the little girl giggle.

“It tickles!”

“Can I have some, Papa?” asked Gideon.

Belle snapped another photo as the kangaroo switched from Gabi to Gideon, holding her son’s hand with long, fortunately blunt, nails. More grain dropped to the ground, attracting the attention of the whistling ducks who waddled back over. They were obviously very used to this. Billabong Sanctuary supplied small bags of grain suitable for hand-feeding the kangaroos that wandered the park freely. The kids loved it, and Belle thought it was a wonderful touch that had been missing from Taronga and Australia Zoo. That, combined with the significantly smaller crowd that enabled Rumple to relax slightly and the kids actually got a good view of the animals, definitely made Billabong Belle’s favourite wildlife centre.

“Alright,” Rumple announced after the grain was gone. “Come on, wash hands. It’s lunch time.”

“Aww!” said Gideon.

“You can feed him again later,” said Belle, grabbing her son’s hand and squeezing Dettol onto them before he touched his burger. She passed it to Rumple so he could do the same with Gabi. “Come on. Eat up.”

“What do you want to see next?” Rumple passed her the map while he wrestled with Gabi, trying to get her hands clean.

“Well, we just did the wombats and koalas,” said Belle, using her free hand to open the map while Gideon looked on and helpfully pointed to the koala pens. Much to her disappointment, Belle wasn’t tall enough to hold the cuddly Australian marsupial – something Rumple may have teased her about, just a little – but there had been the option to pet one while it ate eucalyptus leaves in its perch.

“There’s a crocodile feeding at one o’clock,” she said, checking her watch. Twenty minutes. They’d probably make it.

“Crocodiles?” asked Gideon excitedly.

“Mmm-hmm. But we have to be quick.”

“Okay!”

“Hey, Gid, look.” Rumple gently nudged their son and pointed. “Look. See the kookaburra?”

“Where?”

“Just there. Careful; don’t scare him.”

Gideon stood up on the seat for a better view. Thankfully, the bird stayed put until he finally spotted it, perched on one of the lower branches of the tree that overhung the billabong. Belle noticed two more on another branch, cleaning their feathers, and pointed them out.

“He’s not laughing,” Gideon said dejectedly, pouting at Belle. She shushed him.

“Wait a minute.”

She feared the birds might fly away, but then one of them opened its beak and called: _Coo-ooo-ooo-wha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-whoo-ooo-wha-ha-ha-ha-ha._ Over and over again, until the other two joined in. It really did sound like laughter. Gideon beamed.

Despite their long drive up the coast, they had not seen much wildlife outside of the zoos and sanctuaries. They saw their first cockatoos in Tannum Sands, south of Gladstone; then a kangaroo hopped across the highway somewhere near Proserpine; and a magpie had eyed them dangerously outside their hotel in Townsville. They had yet to encounter any drop bears, although from what Belle had heard about them, she was happy to keep it that way.

“Papa, he’s laughing!”

“I know, son; I can hear him.”

Gideon continued to watch the kookaburra, transfixed, and may have stayed there all day if Belle hadn’t reminded him to eat his burger. He loved animals. Lizards and snakes were a particular favourite. Taronga Zoo had been the highlight of their time in New South Wales; all Gideon had wanted to do was look at the snakes in the reptile house, especially the giant Amazonian pythons (though the platypus had managed to capture his attention for a good ten minutes). Their visit to Australia Zoo in Brisbane went much the same way, but at least there he had branched out to the lizard, turtle and crocodile enclosures. If this fascination kept up for another few years, Belle planned to research getting a reptile license. Probably not for a crocodile – a bearded dragon or a carpet python to start with.

“Can I give him my crust?” Gideon asked.

“No,” said Belle firmly. “Remember what the ranger told us? You don’t feed wild animals; only the kangaroos and the ducks.”

“Aww,” he whined, but put the crust down nonetheless.

“Do you want a Tim-Tam? I’m _pretty_ sure Papa hasn’t eaten all of them yet.”

“Yes, please!”

Rumple narrowed his eyes, but couldn’t say anything as he had to keep Gabi from climbing over the table while Belle fished the chocolate biscuits out of the cooler bag. She gave him a teasing look in return. They stumbled across Tim-Tams in Melbourne and ever since, Belle had been not-so-subtly ignoring it when Rumple snuck them into the basket whenever they went grocery shopping. She wondered if they sold the biscuits, or something similar, in the States; it was like a wafer cookie with a whipped chocolate centre, and coated in another layer of chocolate. Belle had less of a sweet tooth than her husband and children, but the biscuits were delicious with tea.

“So it’s decided? We’re going to see the crocodile feeding next?” asked Rumple.

“Can I feed the crocodile?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Gid,” said Belle. She sincerely _hoped_ that wasn’t how it worked – they’d already seen plenty of crocodiles, and those teeth looked pretty vicious. “We’ll see when we get there, okay?”

“Okay!”

* * *

 

“… So obviously in the wild, Larry here would be hunting live fish and birds, not a hunk of meat on a stick,” the ranger told the little crowd gathered around the crocodile enclosure. He held a ten-foot pole, a leg of kangaroo meat dangling from the end on a piece of string, over Larry the estuarine crocodile, occasionally dipping it close to tease the croc into lunging. On the other side of the double safety fence, Belle spent less time watching the ranger’s presentation and more on Gideon’s wide, fascinated eyes, wondering exactly what lessons were being imparted on her highly impressionable five-year-old. Rumple stood on Gideon’s other side, helping Gabi stay up on the fence. She wasn’t nearly as interested in the crocodiles as her brother; chewing on the cord of her hat was of far more importance.

“In captivity, though, crocs can be pretty lazy, so we’ve gotta get them up for a little exercise – like so,” the ranger continued, the meat getting dangerously close to the crocodile’s mouth. “Come on, boy, up ya get. Come on. Oh, there he goes!”

Larry, lurking beneath mats of vegetation in his personal pond, suddenly launched himself into the air. Belle jumped back in fright as the crocodile’s powerful jaws clamped around the kangaroo carcass, producing an almighty _chomp_ that she could hear from twenty yards away as clearly as if she slammed shut the pages of a World Book Encyclopaedia underneath her nose. Gideon gasped and climbed higher onto the fence so he could see better. Belle stepped closer in case she needed to catch him; there was the safety fence, sure, but in her opinion, they were close enough to Australia’s deadliest predator.

“Crocs are ambush hunters, ya see,” said the ranger, backing away from the pond and turning to face the crowd as Larry swallowed his lunch whole. “They lie in wait for prey to come in close, then lunge. In the water, they can move at up ten to fifteen kilometres per hour, and while they’re waiting, all you’re gonna see of them is their eyes, nostrils and a bit of their head. But they’re bloody clumsy on land, and hardly ever attack unless their prey comes close to the water.”

“Still not a reason to get any closer than necessary,” Belle murmured, giving Rumple a glance. She couldn’t imagine actually _standing_ in the enclosure like the ranger was, preparing another kangaroo luncheon for Larry.

“I think I preferred the koalas,” Rumple muttered in agreement.

“Cute,” said Gabi.

Gideon was silent, too busy watching the crocodile to pay attention to what the rest of his family was talking about.

When the ranger was done teasing Larry, and let him have the second half of his meal, Belle managed not to jump. But her hands still shook a while later while she and Rumple watched the kids feed smaller kangaroo relatives – these ones called _pademelons_ – through the fence opposite a massive aviary home to the largest bird Belle had ever seen.

“‘ _The wedge-tailed eagle is Australia’s largest raptor, and one of the biggest birds of prey in the world_ ,’” she read off the description plaque beneath the aviary while said raptor had a nap, its head tucked underneath its wing. “But they’re primarily carrion eaters, not hunters.”

“What is it about Australia and wildlife that looks like it could kill you?” asked Rumple, with one eye trained carefully on the kids and the other on the sleeping eagle.

“I read that of the twenty-five most venomous snakes in the world, twenty of them are native to Australia.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that meant to be reassuring?”

“Aww. Does the Darkest of all Dark Ones need another cuddle from a koala?” she teased, playfully nudging him in the side.

“ _No,_ ” Rumple growled unconvincingly, and Belle laughed softly at him. He’d admit to liking the koalas about as much as the Tim-Tams, but he didn’t have to worry. She planned on keeping the photo she’d snapped of him petting the fuzzy marsupial with his daughter purely for immediate-family-eyes-only. Unless Henry asked really nicely.

That thought was broken off by Gabi’s panicked cry. “Mama!” she screamed, barrelling up the little rise and all but leaping into Belle’s arms. She’d hidden her face, too, so all Belle could make of the situation was unintelligible, panicky shrieks.

“Gabi, shh, shh. What is it?” Belle asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Gideon was fine, still over by the pademelon fence. A couple of kangaroos had wandered over, perhaps looking for an easy feed. “Gabrielle, use your words,” she said sternly, trying to coax some sense out of her daughter. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s got a head coming out of its belly, Mama!” Gideon shouted, pointing to one of the kangaroos.

“What?”

“Look!”

“It just popped out,” Gideon explained as he wandered back over and stopped within easy reach of his papa – within the safe zone, but not hiding. He had his thumb in his mouth and watched the kangaroo plod along with a mixture of nervousness and curiosity. Belle realised what must have frightened Gabi once the kangaroo had bent over to nuzzle in the dirt for any grain the kids had dropped.

“Oh, Gab,” she said, chuckling as she gave her daughter a comforting squeeze. “It’s alright. Do you remember what I told you about mama kangaroos carrying their babies in a pouch on their bellies?”

“Oh!” Gideon brightened, now understanding what he was seeing. Gabi poked her head out from underneath her hat but didn’t loosen her grip. “’Cos it’s a _mara – mars – mar-zoo-pliel._ ”

“Marsupial,” Belle corrected gently. “You remember that, Gabi? It’s okay. It’s just the baby ‘roo having a look to see what’s going on.”

The kangaroos, done with whatever grain had been left on the ground, plodded slowly towards Rumple and Gideon, sniffing the ground in case they missed any food. These two weren’t so big, maybe only a little taller than Gideon while on all fours, though the left-hand one’s belly sagged with the weight of its joey, now retracted back into its pouch. She had a slightly pained look as she walked; Belle remembered feeling like that in her last couple of months pregnant with Gabi, and sympathised.

“Here, look,” Belle assured her daughter. Rumple had gotten the grain out for Gideon, and he was now patting the one without the joey. “Can I have some? Thanks. See? She’s alright.”

Belle held her palm out flat, which Mama Roo took a second to sniff before grabbing her fingers and chewing happily on the chunks of chaff and sunflower seeds. Gabi stopped crying and had almost let go when the joey popped its head out again.

“No, it’s okay. It won’t hurt you. Really.”

She was almost done with the feed by the time Gabi tentatively released one hand (Rumple helpfully poured a little more in, though Mama Roo did try to steal the bag before deciding the grain in Belle’s hand was plenty for now). She watched the joey uncertainly, then reached out to stroke its ears gently.

“See?”

Gabi petted the baby kangaroo’s nose, then retracted her hand and cuddled close to Belle. At least she was smiling now and not pulling on Belle’s collar.

“Alright, you two, that’s enough,” Rumple declared, tipping a handful of feed onto the ground on his far side so the kangaroos would abandon Belle and Gideon. “Leave us alone.”

“Can we go see the pythons now?” asked Gideon cheerfully. Rumple sighed.

“Really? More snakes?”

“ _Please?_ ”

“I think Gabi might need one more koala cuddle,” said Belle, to which Gabi nodded enthusiastically and Rumple raised an eyebrow. She checked the map – the snakes and lizards area wasn’t too far from the koala pens. “How about we do that first, then we can go see the snakes? Deal?”

Because if they went to the reptiles first, they’d never get him out of there. Gideon bit his lip, then nodded.

“Okay. Deal,” he said, holding out his hand for Rumple to shake.

* * *

 

They finally got back to the hotel just after four o’clock, and everybody crashed. Gabi didn’t even wake up when Belle got her out of the car. Gideon was at least alert enough to walk himself inside and then collapse onto his parents’ bed. It had been a long day, but well worth it; Gideon had been able to hold a blue-tongued lizard just before they left, much to his delight. Belle decided to let them sleep for a while and jumped into the shower to wash off a layer of dust and kangaroo smell. She could do with a nap herself, and there was no harm in having a late dinner at Longboard on the Strand.

Rumple was already in bed when Belle got out of the bathroom, reading through the tourist pamphlets they’d picked up from Billabong. She left him to it and shut the curtains, blocking out the (admittedly pretty) view of Castle Hill and the strange white angel wearing a blue-and-yellow cowboy hat that had been graffitied onto the red cliff face. Then she padded into the kids’ room, softly just in case they woke. She picked Ducky off the floor (the toy must have slipped from Gideon’s grasp after Rumple put him on the correct bunk) and tucked it under the blanket next to her son, then kissed him on the forehead and tucked him in. She repeated the routine with Gabi, tip-toed out of the room and left the door slightly ajar before collapsing into bed with her husband.

“Did the kids eat all of the Tim-Tams?” he asked with deceptive innocence.

“No, no,” she assured him, rolling onto her stomach. “I made sure they left some for you. Anything interesting?”

“Somebody built a castle in the middle of the rainforest.”

“What?” She grabbed the pamphlet, just to make sure he was telling the truth. He was. “ _Paronella Park, built by José Paronella in the 1930’s, used to include a ballroom that could be converted into a movie theatre, tennis courts and a pavilion with turret-topped balconies. Cyclone, flooding and a fire in 1977 have left the castle largely in ruins, but it remains a popular tourist destination featuring a museum, a repaired hydroelectric station that provides power to the park and the nearby town of Mena Creek, and botanical gardens of Far North Queensland tropical livery.”_

“That’s just ridiculous.”

“You built a castle in the middle of the Southern Alps,” she reminded him.

“ _Acquired,_ ” Rumple corrected. “And mine was intended to discourage visitors, not encourage them.”

“True.” Belle picked up another pamphlet, equally as ridiculous. “ _Lee’s Hotel, Ingham; also known as ‘The Pub Without Beer’, was the subject of a poem written by Dan Sheahan in 1943 after he travelled thirty kilometres to the hotel for a beer, only to find that American servicemen stationed in Townsville had drunk it while en route to Port Moresby. The pub was later made famous by the Slim Dusty song of the same name.”_ She laughed. “Almost as ridiculous as Bowen’s twelve-foot-tall stolen mango statue.”

Rumple chuckled at the memory. “Herberton Historic Village sounds a bit like Sovereign Hill,” he said. “Could be an idea for a day trip.”

“Is that where we watched the old man pan for gold in the creek?” she asked, smiling coyly at her husband. At the time, they’d joked that he should find a spinning wheel and show the old prospector how it was done.

Nonetheless, the village had made for a good day out. They’d decided against taking any of the guided tours into the old mines because they hadn’t wanted to repeat what happened in the Old Melbourne Gaolhouse, which Belle only put on her list because she’d wanted to learn more about the ‘Ned Kelly’ figure who kept cropping up in her Australian research. Gideon had freaked out inside the gaol and wouldn’t calm down, so Rumple had to take him back to Elizabeth St for cocoa while Belle kept exploring with Gabi. Horse carriage rides, taffy tasting and gold panning at Sovereign Hill had gone over much better.

“There’s another Anzac memorial in Cairns, near the beach,” Rumple continued, flipping through the brochures. “Just a park; not a building like the ones in Melbourne and Canberra.”

His voice lifted, just a touch – not enough that anybody except Belle (and maybe Archie) would have noticed. When they went to the Shrine of Remembrance after the State Library of Victoria (which Rumple practically had to drag Belle and Gideon out of), he had been even quieter than usual. Australians had a very different view of war to Americans, Belle had found. There was a national holiday called ‘Anzac Day’, which started as the commemoration of a catastrophically failed First World War campaign but later turned into a day of remembrance for all Australians lost in all the wars since. Almost every town they stopped in had a memorial cenotaph somewhere, usually decorated with fields of poppies. The Shrine had an odd effect on Rumple that the others hadn’t; he’d bought a poppy for each of them at the front desk that they then laid in the garden next to the statue of Jack Simpson and his donkey. Belle wondered if it made him think of all the people who’d died in the Ogres’ Wars, some of which Rumple must have known well. Maybe one day he’d feel secure enough to tell her about it, but that wasn’t today.

“Do you want to go on a reef tour?” she suggested, picking up a brochure that advertised boat trips out to the Great Barrier Reef. “I doubt it’ll be as cold as when we went to see the Great Ocean Road. Might be a nice way to end the trip?”

“We’ll see how tired the kids are,” he said. “No sense in it if they’re just gonna throw tantrums the whole time.”

“Mmm,” she agreed.

“In any case, I’ve learned not to trust Australian place names. ‘ _Great_ ’ Barrier Reef could easily be a misnomer.”

“Just because you couldn’t find all twelve Apostles doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” Belle said with a soft chuckle.

“Well, the London Bridge wasn’t in London,” Rumple replied.

“Mmm-hmm.” She yawned and ran a hand through her hair. “I think I’d be happy with three days lying on the beach, to be honest.”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually looking forward to going home?” he asked with a cheeky grin. She smiled in response.

“Why? Do you have another Regent Theatre surprise up your sleeve?”

He chuckled softly. He’d surprised her with the tickets to see, of course, _Beauty and the Beast_ at its first-ever showing in the old Melbourne theatre. The play had been beautiful, if a little inaccurate, so they’d refrained from commenting, and just enjoyed the show and the music and the gorgeous Georgian-style theatre.

_“Papa, did you have a talking fire stick in your castle?” Gideon had asked on the way back to Southbank after the show, stopped at a no-walk light across from Flinders St Station. Belle gave her husband a sideways grin, balancing a sleeping Gabi in her arms while shivering in the cold breeze. The other side of the Yarra River shone with the lights of the city of Melbourne beneath a half-moon as a tram passed them by, carrying the last few late-shift workers back to their beds._

_“Candelabra,” Rumple corrected their boy. Gideon mouthed the word to himself, committing it to memory. “And no, I didn’t have one that talked.”_

_“He did have a talking suit of armour, though,” said Belle. “And if you ask him nicely, maybe he’ll tell you about the time he accidentally gave it an order and it brought him back twenty-four knitting needles from the village.”_

_“Not as ridiculous as the time Mama fell twenty feet from a ladder trying to open the curtains,” Rumple retorted._

_“You nailed them down!”_

_“Papa?”_

_“Yes, Gideon?”_

_“The little green man just disappeared.”_

_Belle and Rumple both jumped, and hurried across the road before the red light stopped flashing, waving an apology to the driver whose journey home had been delayed a second by their distraction. They shared a smile on the other side, still wrapped up in beautiful memories._

_Meanwhile Gideon blinked at them, head tilted to one side, until he was promptly distracted by the arrival of a pigeon come to look for crumbs at the base of the bridge._

 

“We’ve been away for a month. The kids are tired, and so am I,” Belle said, stretching out and laying her head on his chest. “How much of this do you think they’ll remember?”

“Hopefully some. I don’t think Gideon is going to forget his beloved pythons any time soon.” He piled the pamphlets on the bedside table, then wriggled down on the bed so he could put an arm around her. “We could always come back when they’re older.”

“True. We still have to see Perth and Adelaide.”

“If this reptile phase lasts, Gideon might appreciate the crocodile sanctuaries in Darwin,” Rumple suggested.

Belle laughed tiredly and snuggled into his side. “Thank you for doing this,” she said. It was her dream to see the world, of course, but none of it would have happened if he hadn’t arranged it, and done all the logistical stuff that she was no good at.

“It’s no matter,” he said, kissing her hair. “Bedtime?”

She pushed herself up to kiss him back. “Yup. ’Night.”

“’Night.”

They were both asleep less than a minute after Rumple turned the lamp off, drifting away on the sounds of the ocean thousands of miles from Storybrooke, but home so long as they had each other.

**Author's Note:**

> All places and animals mentioned are completely real. Except drop bears. But take some vegemite with you if you go bushwalking, just in case.  
> A note on the title: the song ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was written by Banjo Patterson and is Australia’s “unofficial national anthem” (even though most people probably only know the first verse and the chorus by heart). It’s a song about a homeless guy who steals a sheep and then commits suicide by jumping into a billabong (waterhole) rather than submit to the authorities. The phrase ‘waltzing Matilda’ is slang from (at least) the Great Depression (though probably earlier) when men would pack up their swags (bedrolls, or sometimes saddlebags, called ‘Matilda’) and hit the road looking for work – thus ‘waltzing Matilda’. It’s weird, but then, so are most things about Australia.


End file.
